Eden Hazard - Underlining his statistical importance

Any fan with half a decent footballing brain will tell you how important players with high flair are for some clubs. This season, Cristiano Ronaldo’s contribution of 21 goals in 21 games (and an astounding 186 shots for a winger) for a star studded Real Madrid, Leo Messi’s phenomenal 86 goals in a calendar year for Barcelona or Zlatan Ibrahimovic scoring a goal a game, providing 5 assists and 102 shots in 20 games are eyebrow raising statistics to say the least. It goes without saying that without these telling contributions, their respective teams would be worse off than their current league positions.

While these statistics are there to see for everyone and are often mentioned, there are players who make significant contributions without being given enough credit. Steven Gerrard has completed an excellent 209 accurate long balls out of 269 total attempts at 8.4 accurate long balls a game, ahead of fellow playmakers Santiago Cazorla and Mikel Arteta. Moussa Dembele has a successful pass percentage rate of 91.6%, which is more than the rates achieved by David Silva, Juan Mata, Marouane Fellaini and Steven Gerrard. Tactically speaking, these are as important statistics as the goals and assists column, which merit equal praise. Sadly, their impact only comes to the fore when the holder of those statistics goes missing. Well, you don’t really know what you’ve got until it’s gone, right?

So, in accordance with Chelsea’s faltering season of late, I decided to pick a player who fits into both the above categories. A player with high flair in the entirety of the word itself, Eden Hazard has had a good debut season thus far. Exploding onto the scene with two man of the match awards in his first two Barclays Premier League games, he fired on all cylinders to contribute a penalty and 4 assists in his first 3 matches. He also scored absolute beauties with his weaker foot against Aston Villa (8-0) and then Stoke City (0-4). But just how important is Eden Hazard for Chelsea? And do his technical attributes justify the 32 million Roman shelled out for the Belgian magician? Let’s take a look.

Starting with the most important statistics first, Eden has featured in 23 league matches for the Blues, making 2 substitute appearances. He has scored 6 times and assisted 6, meaning that he contributes a goal directly/indirectly every other game. Eden has also supplied 42 key passes in his 23 appearances, which amounts to 1.8 key passes a game. Compared to Juan Mata, who has 10 goals and 9 assists in 23 appearances, as well as 61 key passes at an average of 2.7, Hazard comes second best. It is interesting to note that all of Chelsea’s 3 musketeers have identical successful pass completion rates of 84.8%, with Mata leading the charge with 1233 attempted passes and Hazard in second with 1017.

So, at first glance it looks like Chelsea find Mata to be a more vital driving force than Hazard. But there are other stats which tell a different story. For example, Chelsea has failed to win any of the three matches that Hazard was suspended for (Brentford 2-2 A, Southampton 2-2 H, Newcastle 3-2 A.)

Also, when Chelsea’s “Holy Trinity” is compared with each other, Hazard tops the turnover charts with 40 turnovers (Mata 33, Oscar 35), the total dribbles segment with 38 (Mata 9, Oscar 24) and dribbles per game with 1.7 (Mata 0.4, Oscar 1.1, Hazard tops the entire team in the last two sections.)

Furthermore, Hazard has been dispossessed 40 times (average 1.7 per game) while Mata has been caught off guard 46 times and Oscar 43 times (both losing the ball on an average of twice a game.)

Clearly, Hazard’s presence (and absence) underlines his importance in the Chelsea line-up. So much so that pundits attributed Chelsea’s mid season slump to Hazard growing jet-lagged due to an extended run of fixtures as well as the trip to Japan for the Club World Cup. On the brighter side, Hazard will be fresh and raring to go after the three game ban. And with him in the side, Chelsea can expect a little bit of joy from the Paradise of Eden.

Stats courtesy: Whoscored.com